Re:The Social Network Bust: What I learned from my job inter...
by bhickey on Monday October 04, 2010 @10:46AM
(#1755769)
I interviewed at Facebook in the August of 2009. I believe that I'm precluded from discussing the technical details of the interview and any secret sauce I may have seen (N.B. Mark Zuckerberg's office is a fishbowl in the middle of the office.) In the end, they decided not to offer me a position and I believe I'm better off for it. Without any reservations I can say that Facebook employs a lot of extremely bright people -- it sometimes feels like a terrible waste of intellect.
A friend at FB suggested that I apply for a Software Engineer position. I sent in my CV and was granted an initial phone interview with a recruiter. Unlike the anonymous article writer, I went into my interviews cold. After as bit of a funny phone interview -- at one point I answered a question by saying "I have no idea how <thing> works. I'd read the manual" -- I was granted an on-site interview. (It probably didn't hurt that I was in Palo Alto in preparation for some climbing at Tuolumne Meadows).
My first technical interviewer was whip-sharp, having worked with a well known programming language designer. The questions he asked were designed to assess my basic knowledge and problem solving abilities. About an hour after this interview concluded, I was phoned by the HR person to schedule a more in depth battery of interviews the following day.
The next day I met with four interviewers, each from a different group. Two of them were fabulous; enthusiastic and engaged. One stuck me as bored by the whole interview process. I overheard the fourth interviewer outside the room complaining to a co-worker about how his time was being wasted interviewing me. (Gee, thanks.)
Parts one and two went swimmingly. With one of the awesome interviewers, I flubbed an easy algorithmic design question. I set out on the wrong angle of attack, and he did a great job of nudging me back. I made my best of my talk with the grumbly interviewer and worked through an open ended problem that required some domain specific knowledge. Some interview practice wouldn't have hurt, but I don't think that there would have been a benefit from technical preparation.
After a few days out in Yosemite Valley I chatted with my initial HR contact who informed me that FB would not be making an offer. So it goes.
Sorry to keep things vague, I did agree not to give out their interview questions or engage in industrial espionage. If anyone has specific questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.
A friend at FB suggested that I apply for a Software Engineer position. I sent in my CV and was granted an initial phone interview with a recruiter. Unlike the anonymous article writer, I went into my interviews cold. After as bit of a funny phone interview -- at one point I answered a question by saying "I have no idea how <thing> works. I'd read the manual" -- I was granted an on-site interview. (It probably didn't hurt that I was in Palo Alto in preparation for some climbing at Tuolumne Meadows).
My first technical interviewer was whip-sharp, having worked with a well known programming language designer. The questions he asked were designed to assess my basic knowledge and problem solving abilities. About an hour after this interview concluded, I was phoned by the HR person to schedule a more in depth battery of interviews the following day.
The next day I met with four interviewers, each from a different group. Two of them were fabulous; enthusiastic and engaged. One stuck me as bored by the whole interview process. I overheard the fourth interviewer outside the room complaining to a co-worker about how his time was being wasted interviewing me. (Gee, thanks.)
Parts one and two went swimmingly. With one of the awesome interviewers, I flubbed an easy algorithmic design question. I set out on the wrong angle of attack, and he did a great job of nudging me back. I made my best of my talk with the grumbly interviewer and worked through an open ended problem that required some domain specific knowledge. Some interview practice wouldn't have hurt, but I don't think that there would have been a benefit from technical preparation.
After a few days out in Yosemite Valley I chatted with my initial HR contact who informed me that FB would not be making an offer. So it goes.
Sorry to keep things vague, I did agree not to give out their interview questions or engage in industrial espionage. If anyone has specific questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.